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Hedwig Dohm, "Women’s Right to Vote" (1876)

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1. Women do not need the right to vote.

This means: Men have been so just, so kind, so noble since time immemorial that one could confidently commit the fortunes of half of humanity to their pure hands. [ . . . ]

This means: Regardless of whether they belong to the barbarian or the civilized world, men are driven by an innate desire, a divine impulse, to protect woman in her rights and happiness. All the malevolence of scoundrels, all the despicable acts of knaves, all the vices of fellows both elegant and poor have always been directed against their own kind. Only in confrontations of man against man has the stronger sex harmed and ruined itself in the struggle for existence.

Woman stood apart on a pedestal, and when man beheld her, the temptations of vice fell silent in his bosom and a spring of virtue opened up. – Never has any man cheated on a woman, raped her, murdered her, or driven her to death and desperation.

Women do not need the right to vote – no – they do not need it in Arcadia, in Utopia, and in all those fairylands and dream worlds that little children and sometimes even great men believe in.

And what about the judgment of history?
Women’s history is but a history of their persecution and their lack of rights, and history says: Since time immemorial, men have oppressed women in outrageous and unheard of ways; and human reason adds to this: And they will continue to oppress them until women participate in drafting the laws that govern them, for each law that is not backed by an authority is a dream and a phantom. – A quick glance at the status of women among civilized and barbarian peoples is enough to offer clarification on the male care that has been granted to the female sex from cradle to deathbed since time immemorial. [ . . . ]


(pp. 92ff)

[ . . . ]

It is a very old ruse of despotism to disparage and degrade its victims in order to justify their oppression. [ . . . ]

It is true, however, that times have improved, and that it is no longer customary for a brother to sell his sister, a father to deprive his daughter of her share of an inheritance, and a mother to be placed under the guardianship of her son; and yet a woman’s lot continues to be difficult enough. Even today, as in the old days, women remain dependents – for life.

The dominance of man over woman has become milder, but marriage continues to be a near absolute and legally guaranteed form of rule by man, and even to this day, a young girl of marriageable age is not much more than a commodity to be inspected, traded, and purchased.

But how could it be that – even the law might be against women?
Does not our Prussian common law begin with the words:
“All Prussians are equal before the law”?
Indeed, all of them are, only with some minor exceptions – for instance, the following ones: According to German law, by consummation of marriage a woman, together with all her possessions, came and still comes under the guardianship and authority of her husband, provided that she has not covered herself contractually. The community of property is considered so natural in Prussia, and in most German states, that an exclusionary agreement requires public announcement. Whereas the husband has unrestricted power to dispose over property and the wife can raise no objection to her husband’s administration of her property, she is not entitled to dispose freely over their common property.

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